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This is QUEENSBOUND.
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So which borough is this? This
is Queens. This is Queens.
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Queens the best borough.
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This is my community and
I love it. Hi everyone.
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This is KC Trommer, founder of
QUEENSBOUND, a poetry project by, for,
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and about Queens.
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This project launched in 2018
with a celebratory reading
on the Flushing-bound 7
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Train, which readers
and writers alike loved.
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We intended on sharing
our 2020 edition in April,
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2020 with another train
meeting. But as you know,
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COVID had other plans for all of us.
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Around half of the poems in our 2020
edition were recorded before Covid
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touchdown in Queens. So when we
finished this edition of the project,
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it reflected Queens before and during the
early days of the pandemic and allowed
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our listeners to hear the city and travel
around Queens by listening to these
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poems.
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This edition includes 16 emerging and
esteemed poets from across the borough
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writing about their neighborhoods.
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If you're curious about which station
stops correspond with the poems,
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go to queensbound.com and find the poems
marked in green on our Queens subway
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map. Have a listen and please
enjoy QUEENSBOUND 2020.
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This is a Queensbound M train.
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The next stop is Elmhurst Avenue.
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My name is Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond.
The poem is called Packed.
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You can't fit your country in a suitcase,
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so you buy it in a grocery
aisle of improvised ingredients.
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You fill your pots and your pans with it,
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your neighbors' apartments with smells
that take you back to where you were
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borne and why you left. You hang it on
your walls, put it on your fire escape,
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your own little temple of familiars.You
paint it on your faceand scream for the
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team and your goalsfor your children,
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enunciating every syllableso they never
forgetso you never forget there is
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another country with your names
tagged to it like a suitcase.
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This is a Forest Hills
71st Avenue bound R Train.
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00:02:21,390 --> 00:02:25,140
The next stop is Jackson
Heights Roosevelt Avenue.
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I'm Sahar Romani reading
my poem, Diversity Plaza.
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Briefly,
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I shake off my anxiety portal
out of my head into the
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plaza lit with uncles high from slow talk
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and beetle nut as young
women FaceTime lovers perhaps
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long distance in a
Himalayan city sidewalks tea
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tipsy with strangers who
stroll in a grammar of laughter
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I once heard in the mother
country and down the street
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mannequins dressed up
like it's holiday royal in
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sequin golden embroidery as
if we're at a wedding party
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as if I have no papers to
grade tonight over calendared
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tomorrow with department
meetings at least along
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74th Street a subwoofer bumps out
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a qawwali a trick to forget its
nearly winter elixir that suspends
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even daylight departure
Spell of good company walks
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me home tonight.
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This is a Flushing Main
Street bound 7 local train.
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00:03:45,640 --> 00:03:48,490
The next stop is 111th Street.
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00:03:50,630 --> 00:03:55,480
ACQ - A Tribe Called Queens by MA
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Dennis.
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To find out your adult film actor name,
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combine the names of your first
childhood pet and the street you grew up
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on.
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My name is Dino Mexico and I come from
A Tribe Called Queens the birthplace of
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Run-DMC and Ladies Love Cool
James my 3rd grade teacher,
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Mrs. James sent me to
the principal's office;
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at P.S. 36 a Cadillac-sized dark-skinned
mahogany desk kept Mr. Downey from
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00:04:06,070 --> 00:04:06,070
getting his hands on mehis face
liquid red like canned beets,
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promising expulsion and expelling
the n-word-hard R (no fabric softener
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softness)-you never forget the day your
tiki torch gets extinguished:the tribe
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00:04:06,070 --> 00:04:06,070
has spoken. A Tribe Called
Queens a melting pot:
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Italian Ices in Corona Jamaican
beef patties in Jamaica,
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00:04:06,070 --> 00:04:06,070
Queens gyros and empanadas in Jackson
Heights-What a non-Halal revelation!
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00:04:06,070 --> 00:04:06,070
Learning that being born at Long Island
Jewish hospital didn't absolve me from
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being Gentile-here,
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where a Fine Yiddish-speaking nanny went
from a bridal shop in Flushing all the
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way to syndicationin
Queens, home of kings:
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Kevin James to John Coltraneeven Long
Island decided to build its City here,
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this place of beats,
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rhymes and life bustling with people's
instinctive travelson alphanumeric soup
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buses and trains searching for the
paths of rhythm back on the Boulevard Of
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Lindenan expelled 3rd grader sought
healing in Hostess Ho-Ho's shoplifted from
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Famous Corner Deli,
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but got caught five finger-handed by
a beer-bellied man FEAR and paranoia,
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like a virus,
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gripped me yet I broke free as he
yelled at me"Get the hell outta here!
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And don't come back!" but I will always
come back to Main Street and Avenues
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00:04:06,070 --> 00:04:06,903
that gridlock hatred because I
am from The Movement called Love.
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00:06:41,870 --> 00:06:46,280
This is a Jamaica 179th
Street bound F Express train.
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The next stop is Forest Hills 71st Avenue.
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My name is Kimiko Hahn and
I'll be reading Ode to the
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F. Ode to the F. Yes,
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you connected my brownstone.
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Some 20 stops to the
humdrum 71st ad Continental
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Boulevard.
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The distance of an everything bagel
or notes on Donne's The Flea for
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my intro to poetry or with
eyes closed, his sublet,
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Christmas ornaments pitched against
the walls on New Year's Eve,
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his bare mattress and thin blanket,
his grinn so much more outer borough.
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I could hardly stand in
that threshold. Buzz me in,
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buzz me in.
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Of course today this is a
memory and the pandemic drift of
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thought where only the medics and
the delivery guys stand on the
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platform I think.
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This is a Flushing Main
Street bound 7 local train.
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The next stop is 69th Street.
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Before Your Arrival by Ellen Hagan
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Before your arrival,
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the ones who brought your father
here come bring with them whole
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almonds, dried berries and
clementines wrapped in cloth,
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their clothes and smart shoes too.
107
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They come looking for the place I've
taken your father looking for the New York
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City that could rival home. Your
Abba loves the East Village.
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Its graffiti, trash and all the
languages on all the streets.
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On 14th and first we visit the Philippines
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Elvie's Turo Turo, but this
trip he wants to see more.
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So we travel to little Philippines,
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Queens 69th off the seven,
train off the seven.
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The whole of Queens opens wide for us.
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Travel agents and wholesale
send anything back for cheap
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travel for cheap return.
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Return we buy Okay Magazines
by the handful for gossip.
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00:09:06,450 --> 00:09:09,870
Tagalog with English
subtitles, glossy photos,
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00:09:11,100 --> 00:09:15,780
Pacquiao with his chiseled
grin everywhere and we eat
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Krystal's where they serve marinated pork
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belly
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sinigang na baboy, kare-kare,
pancit bihon, & lumpiang sariwa.
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I listen close to it all.
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Deep fried ruffle fat pool
lee noodles with shrimp,
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milk fish. Your Abba fake
orders pork blood stew.
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But I am sure I would eat anything here
because this is how much I trust the
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two who brought your father
up in the world. We eat,
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sing sing and pork in tamarind soup.
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00:09:48,690 --> 00:09:50,910
This is how to say snack in
Tagalog. Merienda, Merienda
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is snack. This is how to say ice
cream in Tagalog halo-halo, halo-halo
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is ice cream. This is how
to leave your country.
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00:10:02,850 --> 00:10:07,140
Don't look back. You will only
see the islands melting away.
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00:10:07,440 --> 00:10:11,550
Halo-halo, This is how
to say snack in Tagalog
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00:10:11,820 --> 00:10:12,660
Merienda.
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00:10:12,960 --> 00:10:16,890
This is how to feel of
one place and of one more.
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Back home we sit, get caught up.
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00:10:21,420 --> 00:10:23,460
I read about mansions in Manila,
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00:10:23,700 --> 00:10:27,930
how to make millions face lifts
and silk and hair, red lips,
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00:10:27,930 --> 00:10:29,340
muscles and beauty.
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00:10:29,910 --> 00:10:34,410
In Tagalog I muddle through while
your Abba laughs translates.
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00:10:34,650 --> 00:10:39,180
Translations get muddled too this
is how to raise a baby in two
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00:10:39,180 --> 00:10:44,070
places at once and how it
feels to live and move in two
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worlds at once.
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00:10:49,200 --> 00:10:54,060
This is a Forest Hills,
71st Avenue bound R Train.
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00:10:54,150 --> 00:10:57,150
The next stop is Woodhaven Boulevard.
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My name is Mariahadessa Ekere Tallie
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and this poem is called
Reckless Libations.
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We walked to school full
of chatter and laughs.
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Knowing unknowing, all innocent
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00:11:19,730 --> 00:11:23,430
Ayana's bracelets composed
cool silver music,
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00:11:24,060 --> 00:11:28,290
beaded braids, echoing,
lost languages and marches.
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00:11:28,290 --> 00:11:32,310
My father lectured me
about my sister's window,
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concave glass,
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a small hole I barely remember.
155
00:11:38,640 --> 00:11:43,350
Her closet full of honey
drenched women on record sleeves.
156
00:11:43,350 --> 00:11:48,300
She was storing for him
hoodlum, my father said,
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00:11:49,500 --> 00:11:54,310
on endless amber afternoons
older boys glisten on the
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courts, we kids swung into the sky,
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00:11:58,510 --> 00:12:02,920
wrote a giant concrete
tortoise to nowhere jumped
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00:12:03,010 --> 00:12:06,700
rope, popped bubblegum, dreaming,
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wordless together 18 stories of piss
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and perfume. Good morning, good night.
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The elevator is stuck again.
You're getting so big.
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00:12:22,360 --> 00:12:26,170
Tell your parents I said
hello. It got colder.
165
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No options. Kissed the glass pipe.
166
00:12:31,840 --> 00:12:35,050
I saw eyes filled with dying, ghosts,
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fraying men poured reckless libations.
168
00:12:40,240 --> 00:12:43,030
Pizza shop, Chinese food,
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liquor store palms slapping palms.
170
00:12:48,010 --> 00:12:52,570
For a long time I thought those
hollow exclamation points puncturing
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night were fireworks.
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I tucked myself into the alphabet,
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revised my eyes,
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green my complexion lait
with a dash of cafe.
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00:13:05,770 --> 00:13:08,020
Ayana lost a cousin to high water,
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lost her childhood sweetheart to steel.
177
00:13:12,490 --> 00:13:17,440
When I finally understood the rapid fire
commas and periods outside my window,
178
00:13:18,310 --> 00:13:23,140
I discovered the joy of sneaking
kisses on quiet staircases and
179
00:13:23,140 --> 00:13:25,360
buying wine coolers uptown.
180
00:13:26,650 --> 00:13:30,300
I loved my skin, I loved my neighbors,
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00:13:31,380 --> 00:13:36,190
and especially those moments in
the summer when our jam came on the
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00:13:36,190 --> 00:13:37,023
radio,
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00:13:37,780 --> 00:13:42,430
we turned it up and I felt the
singing in the midst of it all.
184
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Breathing together in the midst of it all.
185
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Breathing together.
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00:13:53,980 --> 00:13:57,550
This is a Flushing Main
Street bound 7 local train.
187
00:13:58,060 --> 00:14:00,550
The next stop is 33rd Street.
188
00:14:02,080 --> 00:14:06,880
I'm Ariel Francisco and this is my
poem Below the Seven Train at 33rd and
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00:14:06,880 --> 00:14:08,620
Rawson, A Hammer Falls.
190
00:14:09,910 --> 00:14:14,710
Either Thor is drunk or one of those
two construction workers peeking
191
00:14:14,710 --> 00:14:19,150
down over the ledge like a couple
of pigeons fucked up big time.
192
00:14:19,540 --> 00:14:24,430
The iron clank against concrete jarring
me from my daydreams, just inches away,
193
00:14:24,970 --> 00:14:29,890
inches away from having my brain splat
pavement or from a surefire lawsuit.
194
00:14:30,190 --> 00:14:35,110
Yet here I am alive, unchanged,
having just barely missed my train.
195
00:14:39,730 --> 00:14:44,110
This is a Jamaica 179th
street bound F Express train.
196
00:14:44,320 --> 00:14:48,040
The next stop is Forest Hills 71st Avenue.
197
00:14:49,750 --> 00:14:50,583
My name is Sweta Srivastava Vikram
198
00:14:51,830 --> 00:14:54,920
and I'm reading my poem
Love Affair on the F
199
00:14:54,920 --> 00:14:59,180
train. Listening to tireless stories of
200
00:14:59,180 --> 00:15:02,930
commuters munching on fries
and nuts in the F train,
201
00:15:03,590 --> 00:15:08,210
my board mind reaches forest tells
along with the emptiness in my
202
00:15:08,420 --> 00:15:09,253
heart,
203
00:15:09,320 --> 00:15:13,850
aching for my deceased mother
whose ashes we had recently
204
00:15:13,850 --> 00:15:18,110
scattered in the muddy waters
of the Ganges in Benares
205
00:15:19,610 --> 00:15:23,720
with my tears naked
raindrops, small as a nail,
206
00:15:24,440 --> 00:15:29,120
a single thought surrounded me.
If I don't write another poem,
207
00:15:29,780 --> 00:15:34,430
I will drown in the ocean of my
sorrows and the dead world will
208
00:15:34,430 --> 00:15:36,200
scatter my broken bones.
209
00:15:37,160 --> 00:15:40,310
Amidst the unknown intimacy of quicksand,
210
00:15:40,970 --> 00:15:44,960
suddenly a woman younger than
my mom draped in a georgette
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00:15:45,470 --> 00:15:49,880
sari and with vermillion in
her hair enters the subway car.
212
00:15:50,690 --> 00:15:55,070
A brown arm holds her tightly around
her love handles while she says,
213
00:15:55,730 --> 00:16:00,140
I've dreamed about you all my
life without realizing it was you.
214
00:16:01,070 --> 00:16:05,510
Love isn't a jewel put away in
a safe to hide from pirates,
215
00:16:05,510 --> 00:16:06,740
I know.
216
00:16:06,740 --> 00:16:10,490
But I'd never seen a middle aged
Indian couple publicly swim in
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00:16:10,490 --> 00:16:14,840
the ocean of emotions exploding on
the insides. The train empties out.
218
00:16:15,290 --> 00:16:20,060
The couple sits across from me. We need
to be careful when we go back home.
219
00:16:20,720 --> 00:16:23,840
He ran his fingertips
on the cleft of a chin.
220
00:16:24,770 --> 00:16:28,910
My wife knows about us and has
threatened to tell your husband.
221
00:16:32,570 --> 00:16:36,800
This is Junction Boulevard.
My name is Nadia Q.
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00:16:36,800 --> 00:16:39,830
Ahmed and this poem is
called Stretching Strength,
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00:16:41,090 --> 00:16:44,930
74th and Roosevelt. A voice
cracks next to me, "Apu,
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00:16:44,930 --> 00:16:45,493
stretch-er karone strong hobe."
225
00:16:53,570 --> 00:16:54,830
I don't turn my head,
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00:16:54,890 --> 00:16:58,490
but imagine the first woman
touching the arm of the second.
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00:16:59,570 --> 00:17:00,980
True enough, I think,
228
00:17:01,430 --> 00:17:04,820
and the muscles around my
knees tense with understanding,
229
00:17:05,630 --> 00:17:10,520
but then my memory bends and I hear
my mother who has been teaching me
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00:17:10,520 --> 00:17:12,650
since I was five to stand up again.
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00:17:12,680 --> 00:17:16,370
Even though you've scraped your
shins on the jagged pebbled sidewalk.
232
00:17:17,300 --> 00:17:21,980
These days when she notes to me
sometimes the pains blooming in her own
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00:17:21,980 --> 00:17:22,813
body.
234
00:17:22,940 --> 00:17:27,740
She lays a foundation of resilience
too and stresses the last part of the
235
00:17:27,740 --> 00:17:32,030
word stress packs it like
she's chewing down on gum,
236
00:17:32,600 --> 00:17:34,670
turns it in her alchemy to
stretch "Stretch-er karone
strong hobe." "Stress-er
237
00:17:34,670 --> 00:17:34,670
karone strong hobe." "You
will be stronger for the
238
00:17:34,670 --> 00:17:39,520
stress."
239
00:17:39,520 --> 00:17:39,520
I'd
240
00:17:46,670 --> 00:17:51,000
read an article by a poet and writer
a few weeks before that offered
241
00:17:51,000 --> 00:17:55,920
translation not as a funnel but
a sieve as an art about the rough
242
00:17:55,920 --> 00:17:57,960
human meaning that shapes the world.
243
00:17:58,890 --> 00:18:03,270
I look down on the sewer
grate is the word foundry,
244
00:18:03,870 --> 00:18:08,430
the same one from a colleague's word
scramble game. We unjumble every day.
245
00:18:09,300 --> 00:18:12,210
I look up foundry,
246
00:18:12,210 --> 00:18:15,360
a place where metal or
glass is melted and formed
247
00:18:15,360 --> 00:18:19,590
into particular shapes. Isn't that stress?
248
00:18:20,520 --> 00:18:25,290
Isn't that stretching? The
Jackson Heights corner,
249
00:18:25,650 --> 00:18:26,640
this concrete,
250
00:18:26,850 --> 00:18:31,290
this metal so hard on us
all because such is our
251
00:18:31,290 --> 00:18:33,810
hardness and such is our strength.
252
00:18:37,530 --> 00:18:40,890
This is a Metropolitan
Avenue bound M train.
253
00:18:41,550 --> 00:18:44,160
The next stop is Forest Avenue.
254
00:18:45,630 --> 00:18:49,410
This is Robert Ostrom and
I'm going to read Apatheia.
255
00:18:51,270 --> 00:18:54,300
I want to be a loom on a porch,
256
00:18:54,840 --> 00:18:58,440
but I am the skin you ask the fox for,
257
00:18:58,440 --> 00:19:01,920
the neighbor in the shower
who clears his throat.
258
00:19:02,220 --> 00:19:04,410
I am not the electric heater,
259
00:19:04,830 --> 00:19:08,280
but I'm wool socks on a clothes horse.
260
00:19:08,280 --> 00:19:11,040
I sense a slow moving threat in me.
261
00:19:11,280 --> 00:19:14,400
A thing you can't say to another,
262
00:19:14,400 --> 00:19:18,120
a thing that would wreck
the house. Like a sage,
263
00:19:18,270 --> 00:19:22,560
I want to go an entire
day undisturbed by the
264
00:19:22,560 --> 00:19:26,670
passions, but out here there
are two kinds of trash:
265
00:19:27,180 --> 00:19:29,070
burning and smoldering.
266
00:19:29,610 --> 00:19:34,230
I am the devil worshiper down the
road, a gravestone in my yard.
267
00:19:34,740 --> 00:19:37,560
I don't want to be a cow country myth.
268
00:19:38,070 --> 00:19:42,840
I want to be that mulberry
and the chain link fence every
269
00:19:42,840 --> 00:19:46,860
day growing stranger and more resolute.
270
00:19:50,580 --> 00:19:53,040
This is Flushing Main Street.
271
00:19:54,990 --> 00:19:59,250
My name is Amy Alvarez and
this is 149th Street Notebook.
272
00:20:01,020 --> 00:20:03,450
The psychic on the corner
toted grocery bags,
273
00:20:03,450 --> 00:20:08,220
past neon signs and her windows run
in her stocking. Inching up shin.
274
00:20:09,540 --> 00:20:14,220
I scooped garter snakes from sidewalk
cracks. My cats captured cicadas,
275
00:20:14,790 --> 00:20:19,650
fluttering green jewels in their pink
mouths. Ma never let us keep them.
276
00:20:20,610 --> 00:20:24,900
That corner always needed a streetlight
boy's blood on asphalt given his
277
00:20:24,900 --> 00:20:28,830
testimony, I can still see
sunset behind the church,
278
00:20:28,830 --> 00:20:33,540
steeple above juniper's
canopy, magenta sky and crows,
279
00:20:33,660 --> 00:20:35,190
crows, crows.
280
00:20:36,120 --> 00:20:39,090
It wasn't lost on us at the
expressway was named Utopia.
281
00:20:39,810 --> 00:20:41,550
There never was any question was there?
282
00:20:45,180 --> 00:20:47,920
This is a Brooklyn bound J Train.
283
00:20:48,550 --> 00:20:51,700
The next stop is Woodhaven Boulevard.
284
00:20:52,930 --> 00:20:54,190
My name is Ryan Black.
285
00:20:54,310 --> 00:20:58,900
The poem is Not Once. Listen,
286
00:21:00,040 --> 00:21:03,490
the early shadows swish and
acclimation, born of steel,
287
00:21:03,490 --> 00:21:08,020
threading steel for the Jamaica
local. It's break and stutter.
288
00:21:08,350 --> 00:21:11,620
Our only music that and Olga Tañón
289
00:21:13,090 --> 00:21:17,860
bootlegged live from Mexico City where
the Rolling Stones looped for three
290
00:21:17,860 --> 00:21:22,660
weeks in August from the tenements
fourth floor from Bobby's apartment.
291
00:21:23,230 --> 00:21:25,600
Some girls, Bobby,
292
00:21:25,900 --> 00:21:28,300
who even in winter went about sleeveless,
293
00:21:28,360 --> 00:21:33,280
displaying tracked arms and once asked
my first girlfriend if he could taste her
294
00:21:33,280 --> 00:21:37,210
pussy, then threw all of his
furniture out of the window.
295
00:21:38,500 --> 00:21:42,910
For years, he'd stopped me at the
turnstiles and put his hand to my chest.
296
00:21:43,360 --> 00:21:47,590
His voice stunned into pleasure.
It's so good. He'd say,
297
00:21:48,160 --> 00:21:52,780
don't even try it once and to
anyone who'd listen, please,
298
00:21:52,780 --> 00:21:56,530
he'd say, anyone at all. Not once.
299
00:21:57,100 --> 00:22:00,220
I want to believe that when
Keats began his famous ballad,
300
00:22:00,790 --> 00:22:02,470
his back to the low burn fire,
301
00:22:02,800 --> 00:22:05,890
a heel slightly raised
when he wrote of the
302
00:22:10,450 --> 00:22:11,283
pale knight and withered sedge, La belle
dame sans merci hath thee in thrall.
303
00:22:12,100 --> 00:22:13,840
It wasn't Spencer, he considered.
304
00:22:14,830 --> 00:22:19,030
Can I say DSO was hardly on
his mind called Flora. Mel,
305
00:22:19,030 --> 00:22:23,320
an afterthought or even his
brother Tom, buried at 19,
306
00:22:23,650 --> 00:22:26,080
that death loitering through November.
307
00:22:27,100 --> 00:22:30,580
That wasn't Fanny who took
the kisses for or Posey,
308
00:22:31,330 --> 00:22:34,360
but something closer to our
need to lose everything,
309
00:22:35,110 --> 00:22:39,160
to try it once than again
and again until what?
310
00:22:40,450 --> 00:22:43,900
Bobby, who would descend to
the avenue and nothing else.
311
00:22:43,900 --> 00:22:48,850
See all day long as the steel frames
of the overhead dispersed midday light,
312
00:22:49,510 --> 00:22:53,200
leaving streaks of blonde
across his curved back.
313
00:22:53,200 --> 00:22:54,640
Say what you will for industry.
314
00:22:55,240 --> 00:22:59,770
It still delights if I can
name it once you'd understand.
315
00:23:04,600 --> 00:23:08,530
The next stop is 103rd
Street Corona Plaza.
316
00:23:10,780 --> 00:23:15,160
My name is Bushra Rehman and this is
Corona and I'm Not Talking about the
317
00:23:15,160 --> 00:23:19,390
Beer. Corona and I'm not
talking about the beer.
318
00:23:20,020 --> 00:23:22,360
I'm talking about a place
that has a little village.
319
00:23:22,480 --> 00:23:26,410
Persian are the number seven train in
Queens between Junction Boulevard and
320
00:23:26,410 --> 00:23:27,460
hundred 11th Street.
321
00:23:28,330 --> 00:23:31,810
I'm talking about the Corona Ice
Kings Spaghetti Park in PS 19.
322
00:23:32,590 --> 00:23:37,150
The Corona F Scott Fitzgerald called the
Valley of Ashes as a great Gatsby drove
323
00:23:37,150 --> 00:23:39,130
past it on his night of carousal,
324
00:23:39,760 --> 00:23:43,960
but me and my own know his home and we
didn't know about any valley of ashes
325
00:23:44,260 --> 00:23:48,170
because by then it topped
off by our houses. You know,
the kind made from brick,
326
00:23:48,170 --> 00:23:52,340
this tan color, no self-respecting
brick would be at all. That's Corona.
327
00:23:53,270 --> 00:23:56,510
I'm talking about Flushing Meadows
Park, home of Worlds Fair relics,
328
00:23:56,810 --> 00:24:00,500
where it felt as if some ancient tribe
or white people had lived there long ago.
329
00:24:01,250 --> 00:24:02,570
It was our own Stonehenge,
330
00:24:02,570 --> 00:24:06,830
our own Eastern Allen sculptures made
from a time when New York City and all the
331
00:24:06,830 --> 00:24:10,910
country was imagining the world's
future back when the future still seemed
332
00:24:10,910 --> 00:24:12,200
exciting and glossy,
333
00:24:12,440 --> 00:24:16,520
like some kind of old stainless
steel science fiction movie. Not now.
334
00:24:16,520 --> 00:24:19,220
When the future seems like the
inside of a dark coat sleeve.
335
00:24:20,210 --> 00:24:23,630
I'm talking about Corona under
the shadow of Shea Stadium,
336
00:24:23,900 --> 00:24:28,130
where brown men became famous and moved
to Long Island where our brothers played
337
00:24:28,130 --> 00:24:31,850
baseball in the tar schoolyards
on the weekends. Back then,
338
00:24:31,850 --> 00:24:34,640
our brother's futures were so
open and they were so close,
339
00:24:35,060 --> 00:24:38,780
they all dreamed the same dream together
that with a crack of a bat and the pool
340
00:24:38,780 --> 00:24:42,110
of their skinny brown legs that could
run away from the smell of garbage,
341
00:24:42,290 --> 00:24:43,430
the fear on the streets,
342
00:24:43,820 --> 00:24:46,550
the boys beating them up when they
came out of the S in the evening,
343
00:24:47,090 --> 00:24:50,420
they could hit that bat and it would
land them all the way into the safety of
344
00:24:50,420 --> 00:24:54,650
Shea Stadium and then pass that into the
island that was long and rich where all
345
00:24:54,650 --> 00:24:56,210
the baseball stars lived.
346
00:25:01,310 --> 00:25:05,270
This is a Jamaica 179th
Street bound F Express train.
347
00:25:05,480 --> 00:25:09,050
The next stop is 21st Street Queensbridge.
348
00:25:11,420 --> 00:25:15,500
This is Pichchenda Bao
reading In Long Island City.
349
00:25:16,880 --> 00:25:21,620
Today I was stopped by the chatter
of birds perched on a light pole.
350
00:25:22,520 --> 00:25:25,760
It was an almost startling noise,
351
00:25:25,760 --> 00:25:28,700
pricking that lonesome industrial corner.
352
00:25:28,700 --> 00:25:32,000
All around, closed autobody shops, food,
353
00:25:32,000 --> 00:25:33,110
truck warehouses,
354
00:25:33,560 --> 00:25:37,940
anonymous buildings with lowered
metal gates lined the cracked uneven
355
00:25:37,940 --> 00:25:40,910
sidewalks. No other soul in sight.
356
00:25:41,480 --> 00:25:45,230
I wondered what did they,
those insistent birds,
357
00:25:45,680 --> 00:25:47,570
have to say to me,
358
00:25:47,570 --> 00:25:51,290
a simple human mother carrying
a load of groceries home.
359
00:25:52,190 --> 00:25:52,550
Oh,
360
00:25:52,550 --> 00:25:57,530
how long did I stand there rooted
in that small indulgence until
361
00:25:57,530 --> 00:26:00,230
I realized that none of it was for me?
362
00:26:03,490 --> 00:26:06,920
This is a Manhattan bound Local train.
363
00:26:07,070 --> 00:26:12,050
The next stop is Sut
Boulevard. Archer Avenue, JFK.
364
00:26:13,220 --> 00:26:17,330
I'm Francisco Delgado and this is my
poem Trains Are More than Metaphors.
365
00:26:18,740 --> 00:26:22,460
A train can't stay still
for long. Its rumbling.
366
00:26:22,460 --> 00:26:25,220
Home tells us when it's coming and going,
367
00:26:25,880 --> 00:26:29,600
which is a better system than pausing
for an announcement that never comes.
368
00:26:30,800 --> 00:26:33,980
When a train stops moving,
it becomes a museum.
369
00:26:34,970 --> 00:26:37,790
It needs a final destination
to mean something,
370
00:26:37,910 --> 00:26:42,800
and this the second to last stop is
only important because it's here where
371
00:26:42,800 --> 00:26:46,200
we'll onto another train that
will take us the rest of the way.
372
00:26:47,130 --> 00:26:50,580
The closing doors trains
are more than metaphors.
373
00:26:51,510 --> 00:26:54,720
My son shows me how with
or without us on board,
374
00:26:54,840 --> 00:26:56,940
they go from place to place.
375
00:26:58,320 --> 00:27:01,470
We're constantly learning that
going back is never the same,
376
00:27:01,950 --> 00:27:04,980
aren't we? For now,
377
00:27:04,980 --> 00:27:08,400
he's learning to not touch every
surface he sees and to never
378
00:27:08,400 --> 00:27:09,630
trust an empty car.
379
00:27:10,590 --> 00:27:15,570
We mind the gaps and absences
that make here and there more than
380
00:27:15,570 --> 00:27:16,890
one letter apart.
381
00:27:20,550 --> 00:27:23,070
The next stop is 69th Street.
382
00:27:25,380 --> 00:27:25,710
Hi,
383
00:27:25,710 --> 00:27:30,210
my name is Jackie Shebow and I'm going
to be reading a poem called Seeing the
384
00:27:30,210 --> 00:27:34,770
Apartment at 69th Street.
I don't know it yet,
385
00:27:35,310 --> 00:27:39,270
but I'm standing in the place between
where I was and where I'll end up.
386
00:27:39,990 --> 00:27:44,610
Today I'm meeting strangers with the wrong
idea in my head of my possible future
387
00:27:45,660 --> 00:27:50,550
long-legged women coming out of the
shower perching on armrests Christmas
388
00:27:50,550 --> 00:27:53,100
lights strung around doorways year round.
389
00:27:54,090 --> 00:27:56,610
I'm looking for a spot
to sit on the train.
390
00:27:57,510 --> 00:28:00,210
I'm looking at least
for a railing to hold.
391
00:28:01,260 --> 00:28:04,530
I'm looking for a place to live.
In the shadow of the seven.
392
00:28:05,670 --> 00:28:07,830
I've left things behind at the old place,
393
00:28:08,340 --> 00:28:13,260
which feels empty now that I'm alone
and each night I purchase them from
394
00:28:13,260 --> 00:28:16,770
the pharmacy that hums with the
clatter of the elevated trap.
395
00:28:17,760 --> 00:28:20,550
A pink hairbrush, natural toothpaste,
396
00:28:21,420 --> 00:28:26,370
a new brand of face wash
a razor on 69th street.
397
00:28:26,940 --> 00:28:30,720
Instead of my imagined
dreamy, beautiful non men,
398
00:28:31,170 --> 00:28:34,530
there would only be one and
her husband who took my coat.
399
00:28:35,430 --> 00:28:38,550
Inside all of the apartments
I see from the platform,
400
00:28:39,030 --> 00:28:42,510
one of them mine cat hair
gathers in the corner,
401
00:28:43,200 --> 00:28:44,670
windows open on trees,
402
00:28:45,480 --> 00:28:50,190
cockroaches peek out from the corners
and dart with projected temerity across
403
00:28:50,190 --> 00:28:53,760
kitchen floors. Coffee
gets cold and percolators.
404
00:28:54,900 --> 00:28:59,640
I carry everything with me. Back
and forth, up and down. Roosevelt,
405
00:29:00,300 --> 00:29:04,110
the train a cradle sometime,
but also a catapult.
406
00:29:07,170 --> 00:29:09,450
This is the last stop on this train.
407
00:29:12,180 --> 00:29:15,780
Thanks for listening. To
see the map, hear the poems,
408
00:29:16,080 --> 00:29:19,110
and learn more about our contributors
and about future trained readings,
409
00:29:19,350 --> 00:29:21,120
go to queens bound.com.
00:00:01,200 --> 00:00:02,033
This is QUEENSBOUND.
2
00:00:05,250 --> 00:00:07,470
So which borough is this? This
is Queens. This is Queens.
3
00:00:07,470 --> 00:00:08,800
Queens the best borough.
4
00:00:10,860 --> 00:00:14,940
This is my community and
I love it. Hi everyone.
5
00:00:15,000 --> 00:00:19,230
This is KC Trommer, founder of
QUEENSBOUND, a poetry project by, for,
6
00:00:19,230 --> 00:00:20,280
and about Queens.
7
00:00:20,760 --> 00:00:25,260
This project launched in 2018
with a celebratory reading
on the Flushing-bound 7
8
00:00:25,260 --> 00:00:28,980
Train, which readers
and writers alike loved.
9
00:00:29,430 --> 00:00:32,640
We intended on sharing
our 2020 edition in April,
10
00:00:32,640 --> 00:00:35,220
2020 with another train
meeting. But as you know,
11
00:00:35,280 --> 00:00:37,200
COVID had other plans for all of us.
12
00:00:42,150 --> 00:00:45,510
Around half of the poems in our 2020
edition were recorded before Covid
13
00:00:45,510 --> 00:00:48,690
touchdown in Queens. So when we
finished this edition of the project,
14
00:00:48,990 --> 00:00:53,070
it reflected Queens before and during the
early days of the pandemic and allowed
15
00:00:53,070 --> 00:00:57,180
our listeners to hear the city and travel
around Queens by listening to these
16
00:00:57,180 --> 00:00:58,013
poems.
17
00:00:59,040 --> 00:01:03,390
This edition includes 16 emerging and
esteemed poets from across the borough
18
00:01:03,720 --> 00:01:05,040
writing about their neighborhoods.
19
00:01:06,510 --> 00:01:09,360
If you're curious about which station
stops correspond with the poems,
20
00:01:09,570 --> 00:01:14,130
go to queensbound.com and find the poems
marked in green on our Queens subway
21
00:01:14,130 --> 00:01:18,570
map. Have a listen and please
enjoy QUEENSBOUND 2020.
22
00:01:21,270 --> 00:01:23,970
This is a Queensbound M train.
23
00:01:24,330 --> 00:01:27,030
The next stop is Elmhurst Avenue.
24
00:01:29,220 --> 00:01:33,090
My name is Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond.
The poem is called Packed.
25
00:01:33,090 --> 00:01:33,090
You can't fit your country in a suitcase,
26
00:01:33,090 --> 00:01:33,090
so you buy it in a grocery
aisle of improvised ingredients.
27
00:01:33,090 --> 00:01:33,090
You fill your pots and your pans with it,
28
00:01:33,090 --> 00:01:33,090
your neighbors' apartments with smells
that take you back to where you were
29
00:01:33,090 --> 00:01:33,090
borne and why you left. You hang it on
your walls, put it on your fire escape,
30
00:01:33,090 --> 00:01:33,090
your own little temple of familiars.You
paint it on your faceand scream for the
31
00:01:33,090 --> 00:01:33,090
team and your goalsfor your children,
32
00:01:33,090 --> 00:01:33,090
enunciating every syllableso they never
forgetso you never forget there is
33
00:01:33,090 --> 00:01:33,653
another country with your names
tagged to it like a suitcase.
34
00:02:16,470 --> 00:02:21,330
This is a Forest Hills
71st Avenue bound R Train.
35
00:02:21,390 --> 00:02:25,140
The next stop is Jackson
Heights Roosevelt Avenue.
36
00:02:28,710 --> 00:02:32,940
I'm Sahar Romani reading
my poem, Diversity Plaza.
37
00:02:34,050 --> 00:02:34,710
Briefly,
38
00:02:34,710 --> 00:02:39,480
I shake off my anxiety portal
out of my head into the
39
00:02:39,480 --> 00:02:43,930
plaza lit with uncles high from slow talk
40
00:02:44,250 --> 00:02:49,230
and beetle nut as young
women FaceTime lovers perhaps
41
00:02:49,530 --> 00:02:54,060
long distance in a
Himalayan city sidewalks tea
42
00:02:54,060 --> 00:02:58,950
tipsy with strangers who
stroll in a grammar of laughter
43
00:02:59,170 --> 00:03:03,370
I once heard in the mother
country and down the street
44
00:03:03,640 --> 00:03:08,200
mannequins dressed up
like it's holiday royal in
45
00:03:08,200 --> 00:03:13,000
sequin golden embroidery as
if we're at a wedding party
46
00:03:13,240 --> 00:03:17,530
as if I have no papers to
grade tonight over calendared
47
00:03:17,530 --> 00:03:21,760
tomorrow with department
meetings at least along
48
00:03:21,760 --> 00:03:25,360
74th Street a subwoofer bumps out
49
00:03:26,740 --> 00:03:31,660
a qawwali a trick to forget its
nearly winter elixir that suspends
50
00:03:31,960 --> 00:03:36,880
even daylight departure
Spell of good company walks
51
00:03:36,880 --> 00:03:38,050
me home tonight.
52
00:03:41,560 --> 00:03:45,250
This is a Flushing Main
Street bound 7 local train.
53
00:03:45,640 --> 00:03:48,490
The next stop is 111th Street.
54
00:03:50,630 --> 00:03:55,480
ACQ - A Tribe Called Queens by MA
55
00:03:55,570 --> 00:03:56,403
Dennis.
56
00:03:57,430 --> 00:04:00,700
To find out your adult film actor name,
57
00:04:01,390 --> 00:04:06,070
combine the names of your first
childhood pet and the street you grew up
58
00:04:06,070 --> 00:04:06,070
on.
59
00:04:06,070 --> 00:04:06,070
My name is Dino Mexico and I come from
A Tribe Called Queens the birthplace of
60
00:04:06,070 --> 00:04:06,070
Run-DMC and Ladies Love Cool
James my 3rd grade teacher,
61
00:04:06,070 --> 00:04:06,070
Mrs. James sent me to
the principal's office;
62
00:04:06,070 --> 00:04:06,070
at P.S. 36 a Cadillac-sized dark-skinned
mahogany desk kept Mr. Downey from
63
00:04:06,070 --> 00:04:06,070
getting his hands on mehis face
liquid red like canned beets,
64
00:04:06,070 --> 00:04:06,070
promising expulsion and expelling
the n-word-hard R (no fabric softener
65
00:04:06,070 --> 00:04:06,070
softness)-you never forget the day your
tiki torch gets extinguished:the tribe
66
00:04:06,070 --> 00:04:06,070
has spoken. A Tribe Called
Queens a melting pot:
67
00:04:06,070 --> 00:04:06,070
Italian Ices in Corona Jamaican
beef patties in Jamaica,
68
00:04:06,070 --> 00:04:06,070
Queens gyros and empanadas in Jackson
Heights-What a non-Halal revelation!
69
00:04:06,070 --> 00:04:06,070
Learning that being born at Long Island
Jewish hospital didn't absolve me from
70
00:04:06,070 --> 00:04:06,070
being Gentile-here,
71
00:04:06,070 --> 00:04:06,070
where a Fine Yiddish-speaking nanny went
from a bridal shop in Flushing all the
72
00:04:06,070 --> 00:04:06,070
way to syndicationin
Queens, home of kings:
73
00:04:06,070 --> 00:04:06,070
Kevin James to John Coltraneeven Long
Island decided to build its City here,
74
00:04:06,070 --> 00:04:06,070
this place of beats,
75
00:04:06,070 --> 00:04:06,070
rhymes and life bustling with people's
instinctive travelson alphanumeric soup
76
00:04:06,070 --> 00:04:06,070
buses and trains searching for the
paths of rhythm back on the Boulevard Of
77
00:04:06,070 --> 00:04:06,070
Lindenan expelled 3rd grader sought
healing in Hostess Ho-Ho's shoplifted from
78
00:04:06,070 --> 00:04:06,070
Famous Corner Deli,
79
00:04:06,070 --> 00:04:06,070
but got caught five finger-handed by
a beer-bellied man FEAR and paranoia,
80
00:04:06,070 --> 00:04:06,070
like a virus,
81
00:04:06,070 --> 00:04:06,070
gripped me yet I broke free as he
yelled at me"Get the hell outta here!
82
00:04:06,070 --> 00:04:06,070
And don't come back!" but I will always
come back to Main Street and Avenues
83
00:04:06,070 --> 00:04:06,903
that gridlock hatred because I
am from The Movement called Love.
84
00:06:41,870 --> 00:06:46,280
This is a Jamaica 179th
Street bound F Express train.
85
00:06:46,490 --> 00:06:50,000
The next stop is Forest Hills 71st Avenue.
86
00:06:52,100 --> 00:06:56,860
My name is Kimiko Hahn and
I'll be reading Ode to the
87
00:06:57,020 --> 00:07:01,340
F. Ode to the F. Yes,
88
00:07:01,670 --> 00:07:03,320
you connected my brownstone.
89
00:07:03,800 --> 00:07:08,630
Some 20 stops to the
humdrum 71st ad Continental
90
00:07:08,630 --> 00:07:09,463
Boulevard.
91
00:07:10,040 --> 00:07:14,900
The distance of an everything bagel
or notes on Donne's The Flea for
92
00:07:14,900 --> 00:07:19,520
my intro to poetry or with
eyes closed, his sublet,
93
00:07:20,390 --> 00:07:24,230
Christmas ornaments pitched against
the walls on New Year's Eve,
94
00:07:24,980 --> 00:07:29,750
his bare mattress and thin blanket,
his grinn so much more outer borough.
95
00:07:30,440 --> 00:07:34,460
I could hardly stand in
that threshold. Buzz me in,
96
00:07:35,120 --> 00:07:37,370
buzz me in.
97
00:07:38,390 --> 00:07:43,190
Of course today this is a
memory and the pandemic drift of
98
00:07:43,190 --> 00:07:48,110
thought where only the medics and
the delivery guys stand on the
99
00:07:48,110 --> 00:07:50,210
platform I think.
100
00:07:53,240 --> 00:07:56,870
This is a Flushing Main
Street bound 7 local train.
101
00:07:57,320 --> 00:07:59,780
The next stop is 69th Street.
102
00:08:01,100 --> 00:08:03,770
Before Your Arrival by Ellen Hagan
103
00:08:05,690 --> 00:08:07,070
Before your arrival,
104
00:08:07,460 --> 00:08:12,290
the ones who brought your father
here come bring with them whole
105
00:08:12,290 --> 00:08:16,340
almonds, dried berries and
clementines wrapped in cloth,
106
00:08:17,060 --> 00:08:19,430
their clothes and smart shoes too.
107
00:08:20,180 --> 00:08:24,950
They come looking for the place I've
taken your father looking for the New York
108
00:08:24,950 --> 00:08:29,900
City that could rival home. Your
Abba loves the East Village.
109
00:08:30,290 --> 00:08:34,670
Its graffiti, trash and all the
languages on all the streets.
110
00:08:35,180 --> 00:08:38,570
On 14th and first we visit the Philippines
111
00:08:39,980 --> 00:08:43,610
Elvie's Turo Turo, but this
trip he wants to see more.
112
00:08:44,150 --> 00:08:46,250
So we travel to little Philippines,
113
00:08:46,640 --> 00:08:51,530
Queens 69th off the seven,
train off the seven.
114
00:08:51,680 --> 00:08:54,560
The whole of Queens opens wide for us.
115
00:08:55,080 --> 00:08:59,070
Travel agents and wholesale
send anything back for cheap
116
00:08:59,490 --> 00:09:01,440
travel for cheap return.
117
00:09:01,560 --> 00:09:06,060
Return we buy Okay Magazines
by the handful for gossip.
118
00:09:06,450 --> 00:09:09,870
Tagalog with English
subtitles, glossy photos,
119
00:09:11,100 --> 00:09:15,780
Pacquiao with his chiseled
grin everywhere and we eat
120
00:09:16,320 --> 00:09:18,870
Krystal's where they serve marinated pork
121
00:09:18,870 --> 00:09:23,870
belly
122
00:09:23,870 --> 00:09:25,080
sinigang na baboy, kare-kare,
pancit bihon, & lumpiang sariwa.
123
00:09:25,470 --> 00:09:27,240
I listen close to it all.
124
00:09:27,720 --> 00:09:31,440
Deep fried ruffle fat pool
lee noodles with shrimp,
125
00:09:31,710 --> 00:09:35,820
milk fish. Your Abba fake
orders pork blood stew.
126
00:09:36,240 --> 00:09:41,190
But I am sure I would eat anything here
because this is how much I trust the
127
00:09:41,190 --> 00:09:45,630
two who brought your father
up in the world. We eat,
128
00:09:45,630 --> 00:09:48,150
sing sing and pork in tamarind soup.
129
00:09:48,690 --> 00:09:50,910
This is how to say snack in
Tagalog. Merienda, Merienda
130
00:09:53,220 --> 00:09:56,850
is snack. This is how to say ice
cream in Tagalog halo-halo, halo-halo
131
00:09:58,380 --> 00:10:02,550
is ice cream. This is how
to leave your country.
132
00:10:02,850 --> 00:10:07,140
Don't look back. You will only
see the islands melting away.
133
00:10:07,440 --> 00:10:11,550
Halo-halo, This is how
to say snack in Tagalog
134
00:10:11,820 --> 00:10:12,660
Merienda.
135
00:10:12,960 --> 00:10:16,890
This is how to feel of
one place and of one more.
136
00:10:18,330 --> 00:10:20,820
Back home we sit, get caught up.
137
00:10:21,420 --> 00:10:23,460
I read about mansions in Manila,
138
00:10:23,700 --> 00:10:27,930
how to make millions face lifts
and silk and hair, red lips,
139
00:10:27,930 --> 00:10:29,340
muscles and beauty.
140
00:10:29,910 --> 00:10:34,410
In Tagalog I muddle through while
your Abba laughs translates.
141
00:10:34,650 --> 00:10:39,180
Translations get muddled too this
is how to raise a baby in two
142
00:10:39,180 --> 00:10:44,070
places at once and how it
feels to live and move in two
143
00:10:44,070 --> 00:10:46,050
worlds at once.
144
00:10:49,200 --> 00:10:54,060
This is a Forest Hills,
71st Avenue bound R Train.
145
00:10:54,150 --> 00:10:57,150
The next stop is Woodhaven Boulevard.
146
00:10:59,220 --> 00:11:00,053
My name is Mariahadessa Ekere Tallie
147
00:11:02,460 --> 00:11:05,460
and this poem is called
Reckless Libations.
148
00:11:08,220 --> 00:11:12,210
We walked to school full
of chatter and laughs.
149
00:11:13,170 --> 00:11:17,940
Knowing unknowing, all innocent
150
00:11:19,730 --> 00:11:23,430
Ayana's bracelets composed
cool silver music,
151
00:11:24,060 --> 00:11:28,290
beaded braids, echoing,
lost languages and marches.
152
00:11:28,290 --> 00:11:32,310
My father lectured me
about my sister's window,
153
00:11:33,030 --> 00:11:35,130
concave glass,
154
00:11:35,130 --> 00:11:38,340
a small hole I barely remember.
155
00:11:38,640 --> 00:11:43,350
Her closet full of honey
drenched women on record sleeves.
156
00:11:43,350 --> 00:11:48,300
She was storing for him
hoodlum, my father said,
157
00:11:49,500 --> 00:11:54,310
on endless amber afternoons
older boys glisten on the
158
00:11:54,310 --> 00:11:58,300
courts, we kids swung into the sky,
159
00:11:58,510 --> 00:12:02,920
wrote a giant concrete
tortoise to nowhere jumped
160
00:12:03,010 --> 00:12:06,700
rope, popped bubblegum, dreaming,
161
00:12:06,700 --> 00:12:11,290
wordless together 18 stories of piss
162
00:12:11,830 --> 00:12:15,760
and perfume. Good morning, good night.
163
00:12:16,870 --> 00:12:21,400
The elevator is stuck again.
You're getting so big.
164
00:12:22,360 --> 00:12:26,170
Tell your parents I said
hello. It got colder.
165
00:12:27,610 --> 00:12:30,940
No options. Kissed the glass pipe.
166
00:12:31,840 --> 00:12:35,050
I saw eyes filled with dying, ghosts,
167
00:12:36,040 --> 00:12:38,710
fraying men poured reckless libations.
168
00:12:40,240 --> 00:12:43,030
Pizza shop, Chinese food,
169
00:12:43,570 --> 00:12:47,080
liquor store palms slapping palms.
170
00:12:48,010 --> 00:12:52,570
For a long time I thought those
hollow exclamation points puncturing
171
00:12:52,580 --> 00:12:56,020
night were fireworks.
172
00:12:56,020 --> 00:12:57,880
I tucked myself into the alphabet,
173
00:12:58,420 --> 00:12:59,680
revised my eyes,
174
00:12:59,680 --> 00:13:04,660
green my complexion lait
with a dash of cafe.
175
00:13:05,770 --> 00:13:08,020
Ayana lost a cousin to high water,
176
00:13:08,920 --> 00:13:11,170
lost her childhood sweetheart to steel.
177
00:13:12,490 --> 00:13:17,440
When I finally understood the rapid fire
commas and periods outside my window,
178
00:13:18,310 --> 00:13:23,140
I discovered the joy of sneaking
kisses on quiet staircases and
179
00:13:23,140 --> 00:13:25,360
buying wine coolers uptown.
180
00:13:26,650 --> 00:13:30,300
I loved my skin, I loved my neighbors,
181
00:13:31,380 --> 00:13:36,190
and especially those moments in
the summer when our jam came on the
182
00:13:36,190 --> 00:13:37,023
radio,
183
00:13:37,780 --> 00:13:42,430
we turned it up and I felt the
singing in the midst of it all.
184
00:13:43,480 --> 00:13:47,020
Breathing together in the midst of it all.
185
00:13:48,010 --> 00:13:49,720
Breathing together.
186
00:13:53,980 --> 00:13:57,550
This is a Flushing Main
Street bound 7 local train.
187
00:13:58,060 --> 00:14:00,550
The next stop is 33rd Street.
188
00:14:02,080 --> 00:14:06,880
I'm Ariel Francisco and this is my
poem Below the Seven Train at 33rd and
189
00:14:06,880 --> 00:14:08,620
Rawson, A Hammer Falls.
190
00:14:09,910 --> 00:14:14,710
Either Thor is drunk or one of those
two construction workers peeking
191
00:14:14,710 --> 00:14:19,150
down over the ledge like a couple
of pigeons fucked up big time.
192
00:14:19,540 --> 00:14:24,430
The iron clank against concrete jarring
me from my daydreams, just inches away,
193
00:14:24,970 --> 00:14:29,890
inches away from having my brain splat
pavement or from a surefire lawsuit.
194
00:14:30,190 --> 00:14:35,110
Yet here I am alive, unchanged,
having just barely missed my train.
195
00:14:39,730 --> 00:14:44,110
This is a Jamaica 179th
street bound F Express train.
196
00:14:44,320 --> 00:14:48,040
The next stop is Forest Hills 71st Avenue.
197
00:14:49,750 --> 00:14:50,583
My name is Sweta Srivastava Vikram
198
00:14:51,830 --> 00:14:54,920
and I'm reading my poem
Love Affair on the F
199
00:14:54,920 --> 00:14:59,180
train. Listening to tireless stories of
200
00:14:59,180 --> 00:15:02,930
commuters munching on fries
and nuts in the F train,
201
00:15:03,590 --> 00:15:08,210
my board mind reaches forest tells
along with the emptiness in my
202
00:15:08,420 --> 00:15:09,253
heart,
203
00:15:09,320 --> 00:15:13,850
aching for my deceased mother
whose ashes we had recently
204
00:15:13,850 --> 00:15:18,110
scattered in the muddy waters
of the Ganges in Benares
205
00:15:19,610 --> 00:15:23,720
with my tears naked
raindrops, small as a nail,
206
00:15:24,440 --> 00:15:29,120
a single thought surrounded me.
If I don't write another poem,
207
00:15:29,780 --> 00:15:34,430
I will drown in the ocean of my
sorrows and the dead world will
208
00:15:34,430 --> 00:15:36,200
scatter my broken bones.
209
00:15:37,160 --> 00:15:40,310
Amidst the unknown intimacy of quicksand,
210
00:15:40,970 --> 00:15:44,960
suddenly a woman younger than
my mom draped in a georgette
211
00:15:45,470 --> 00:15:49,880
sari and with vermillion in
her hair enters the subway car.
212
00:15:50,690 --> 00:15:55,070
A brown arm holds her tightly around
her love handles while she says,
213
00:15:55,730 --> 00:16:00,140
I've dreamed about you all my
life without realizing it was you.
214
00:16:01,070 --> 00:16:05,510
Love isn't a jewel put away in
a safe to hide from pirates,
215
00:16:05,510 --> 00:16:06,740
I know.
216
00:16:06,740 --> 00:16:10,490
But I'd never seen a middle aged
Indian couple publicly swim in
217
00:16:10,490 --> 00:16:14,840
the ocean of emotions exploding on
the insides. The train empties out.
218
00:16:15,290 --> 00:16:20,060
The couple sits across from me. We need
to be careful when we go back home.
219
00:16:20,720 --> 00:16:23,840
He ran his fingertips
on the cleft of a chin.
220
00:16:24,770 --> 00:16:28,910
My wife knows about us and has
threatened to tell your husband.
221
00:16:32,570 --> 00:16:36,800
This is Junction Boulevard.
My name is Nadia Q.
222
00:16:36,800 --> 00:16:39,830
Ahmed and this poem is
called Stretching Strength,
223
00:16:41,090 --> 00:16:44,930
74th and Roosevelt. A voice
cracks next to me, "Apu,
224
00:16:44,930 --> 00:16:45,493
stretch-er karone strong hobe."
225
00:16:53,570 --> 00:16:54,830
I don't turn my head,
226
00:16:54,890 --> 00:16:58,490
but imagine the first woman
touching the arm of the second.
227
00:16:59,570 --> 00:17:00,980
True enough, I think,
228
00:17:01,430 --> 00:17:04,820
and the muscles around my
knees tense with understanding,
229
00:17:05,630 --> 00:17:10,520
but then my memory bends and I hear
my mother who has been teaching me
230
00:17:10,520 --> 00:17:12,650
since I was five to stand up again.
231
00:17:12,680 --> 00:17:16,370
Even though you've scraped your
shins on the jagged pebbled sidewalk.
232
00:17:17,300 --> 00:17:21,980
These days when she notes to me
sometimes the pains blooming in her own
233
00:17:21,980 --> 00:17:22,813
body.
234
00:17:22,940 --> 00:17:27,740
She lays a foundation of resilience
too and stresses the last part of the
235
00:17:27,740 --> 00:17:32,030
word stress packs it like
she's chewing down on gum,
236
00:17:32,600 --> 00:17:34,670
turns it in her alchemy to
stretch "Stretch-er karone
strong hobe." "Stress-er
237
00:17:34,670 --> 00:17:34,670
karone strong hobe." "You
will be stronger for the
238
00:17:34,670 --> 00:17:39,520
stress."
239
00:17:39,520 --> 00:17:39,520
I'd
240
00:17:46,670 --> 00:17:51,000
read an article by a poet and writer
a few weeks before that offered
241
00:17:51,000 --> 00:17:55,920
translation not as a funnel but
a sieve as an art about the rough
242
00:17:55,920 --> 00:17:57,960
human meaning that shapes the world.
243
00:17:58,890 --> 00:18:03,270
I look down on the sewer
grate is the word foundry,
244
00:18:03,870 --> 00:18:08,430
the same one from a colleague's word
scramble game. We unjumble every day.
245
00:18:09,300 --> 00:18:12,210
I look up foundry,
246
00:18:12,210 --> 00:18:15,360
a place where metal or
glass is melted and formed
247
00:18:15,360 --> 00:18:19,590
into particular shapes. Isn't that stress?
248
00:18:20,520 --> 00:18:25,290
Isn't that stretching? The
Jackson Heights corner,
249
00:18:25,650 --> 00:18:26,640
this concrete,
250
00:18:26,850 --> 00:18:31,290
this metal so hard on us
all because such is our
251
00:18:31,290 --> 00:18:33,810
hardness and such is our strength.
252
00:18:37,530 --> 00:18:40,890
This is a Metropolitan
Avenue bound M train.
253
00:18:41,550 --> 00:18:44,160
The next stop is Forest Avenue.
254
00:18:45,630 --> 00:18:49,410
This is Robert Ostrom and
I'm going to read Apatheia.
255
00:18:51,270 --> 00:18:54,300
I want to be a loom on a porch,
256
00:18:54,840 --> 00:18:58,440
but I am the skin you ask the fox for,
257
00:18:58,440 --> 00:19:01,920
the neighbor in the shower
who clears his throat.
258
00:19:02,220 --> 00:19:04,410
I am not the electric heater,
259
00:19:04,830 --> 00:19:08,280
but I'm wool socks on a clothes horse.
260
00:19:08,280 --> 00:19:11,040
I sense a slow moving threat in me.
261
00:19:11,280 --> 00:19:14,400
A thing you can't say to another,
262
00:19:14,400 --> 00:19:18,120
a thing that would wreck
the house. Like a sage,
263
00:19:18,270 --> 00:19:22,560
I want to go an entire
day undisturbed by the
264
00:19:22,560 --> 00:19:26,670
passions, but out here there
are two kinds of trash:
265
00:19:27,180 --> 00:19:29,070
burning and smoldering.
266
00:19:29,610 --> 00:19:34,230
I am the devil worshiper down the
road, a gravestone in my yard.
267
00:19:34,740 --> 00:19:37,560
I don't want to be a cow country myth.
268
00:19:38,070 --> 00:19:42,840
I want to be that mulberry
and the chain link fence every
269
00:19:42,840 --> 00:19:46,860
day growing stranger and more resolute.
270
00:19:50,580 --> 00:19:53,040
This is Flushing Main Street.
271
00:19:54,990 --> 00:19:59,250
My name is Amy Alvarez and
this is 149th Street Notebook.
272
00:20:01,020 --> 00:20:03,450
The psychic on the corner
toted grocery bags,
273
00:20:03,450 --> 00:20:08,220
past neon signs and her windows run
in her stocking. Inching up shin.
274
00:20:09,540 --> 00:20:14,220
I scooped garter snakes from sidewalk
cracks. My cats captured cicadas,
275
00:20:14,790 --> 00:20:19,650
fluttering green jewels in their pink
mouths. Ma never let us keep them.
276
00:20:20,610 --> 00:20:24,900
That corner always needed a streetlight
boy's blood on asphalt given his
277
00:20:24,900 --> 00:20:28,830
testimony, I can still see
sunset behind the church,
278
00:20:28,830 --> 00:20:33,540
steeple above juniper's
canopy, magenta sky and crows,
279
00:20:33,660 --> 00:20:35,190
crows, crows.
280
00:20:36,120 --> 00:20:39,090
It wasn't lost on us at the
expressway was named Utopia.
281
00:20:39,810 --> 00:20:41,550
There never was any question was there?
282
00:20:45,180 --> 00:20:47,920
This is a Brooklyn bound J Train.
283
00:20:48,550 --> 00:20:51,700
The next stop is Woodhaven Boulevard.
284
00:20:52,930 --> 00:20:54,190
My name is Ryan Black.
285
00:20:54,310 --> 00:20:58,900
The poem is Not Once. Listen,
286
00:21:00,040 --> 00:21:03,490
the early shadows swish and
acclimation, born of steel,
287
00:21:03,490 --> 00:21:08,020
threading steel for the Jamaica
local. It's break and stutter.
288
00:21:08,350 --> 00:21:11,620
Our only music that and Olga Tañón
289
00:21:13,090 --> 00:21:17,860
bootlegged live from Mexico City where
the Rolling Stones looped for three
290
00:21:17,860 --> 00:21:22,660
weeks in August from the tenements
fourth floor from Bobby's apartment.
291
00:21:23,230 --> 00:21:25,600
Some girls, Bobby,
292
00:21:25,900 --> 00:21:28,300
who even in winter went about sleeveless,
293
00:21:28,360 --> 00:21:33,280
displaying tracked arms and once asked
my first girlfriend if he could taste her
294
00:21:33,280 --> 00:21:37,210
pussy, then threw all of his
furniture out of the window.
295
00:21:38,500 --> 00:21:42,910
For years, he'd stopped me at the
turnstiles and put his hand to my chest.
296
00:21:43,360 --> 00:21:47,590
His voice stunned into pleasure.
It's so good. He'd say,
297
00:21:48,160 --> 00:21:52,780
don't even try it once and to
anyone who'd listen, please,
298
00:21:52,780 --> 00:21:56,530
he'd say, anyone at all. Not once.
299
00:21:57,100 --> 00:22:00,220
I want to believe that when
Keats began his famous ballad,
300
00:22:00,790 --> 00:22:02,470
his back to the low burn fire,
301
00:22:02,800 --> 00:22:05,890
a heel slightly raised
when he wrote of the
302
00:22:10,450 --> 00:22:11,283
pale knight and withered sedge, La belle
dame sans merci hath thee in thrall.
303
00:22:12,100 --> 00:22:13,840
It wasn't Spencer, he considered.
304
00:22:14,830 --> 00:22:19,030
Can I say DSO was hardly on
his mind called Flora. Mel,
305
00:22:19,030 --> 00:22:23,320
an afterthought or even his
brother Tom, buried at 19,
306
00:22:23,650 --> 00:22:26,080
that death loitering through November.
307
00:22:27,100 --> 00:22:30,580
That wasn't Fanny who took
the kisses for or Posey,
308
00:22:31,330 --> 00:22:34,360
but something closer to our
need to lose everything,
309
00:22:35,110 --> 00:22:39,160
to try it once than again
and again until what?
310
00:22:40,450 --> 00:22:43,900
Bobby, who would descend to
the avenue and nothing else.
311
00:22:43,900 --> 00:22:48,850
See all day long as the steel frames
of the overhead dispersed midday light,
312
00:22:49,510 --> 00:22:53,200
leaving streaks of blonde
across his curved back.
313
00:22:53,200 --> 00:22:54,640
Say what you will for industry.
314
00:22:55,240 --> 00:22:59,770
It still delights if I can
name it once you'd understand.
315
00:23:04,600 --> 00:23:08,530
The next stop is 103rd
Street Corona Plaza.
316
00:23:10,780 --> 00:23:15,160
My name is Bushra Rehman and this is
Corona and I'm Not Talking about the
317
00:23:15,160 --> 00:23:19,390
Beer. Corona and I'm not
talking about the beer.
318
00:23:20,020 --> 00:23:22,360
I'm talking about a place
that has a little village.
319
00:23:22,480 --> 00:23:26,410
Persian are the number seven train in
Queens between Junction Boulevard and
320
00:23:26,410 --> 00:23:27,460
hundred 11th Street.
321
00:23:28,330 --> 00:23:31,810
I'm talking about the Corona Ice
Kings Spaghetti Park in PS 19.
322
00:23:32,590 --> 00:23:37,150
The Corona F Scott Fitzgerald called the
Valley of Ashes as a great Gatsby drove
323
00:23:37,150 --> 00:23:39,130
past it on his night of carousal,
324
00:23:39,760 --> 00:23:43,960
but me and my own know his home and we
didn't know about any valley of ashes
325
00:23:44,260 --> 00:23:48,170
because by then it topped
off by our houses. You know,
the kind made from brick,
326
00:23:48,170 --> 00:23:52,340
this tan color, no self-respecting
brick would be at all. That's Corona.
327
00:23:53,270 --> 00:23:56,510
I'm talking about Flushing Meadows
Park, home of Worlds Fair relics,
328
00:23:56,810 --> 00:24:00,500
where it felt as if some ancient tribe
or white people had lived there long ago.
329
00:24:01,250 --> 00:24:02,570
It was our own Stonehenge,
330
00:24:02,570 --> 00:24:06,830
our own Eastern Allen sculptures made
from a time when New York City and all the
331
00:24:06,830 --> 00:24:10,910
country was imagining the world's
future back when the future still seemed
332
00:24:10,910 --> 00:24:12,200
exciting and glossy,
333
00:24:12,440 --> 00:24:16,520
like some kind of old stainless
steel science fiction movie. Not now.
334
00:24:16,520 --> 00:24:19,220
When the future seems like the
inside of a dark coat sleeve.
335
00:24:20,210 --> 00:24:23,630
I'm talking about Corona under
the shadow of Shea Stadium,
336
00:24:23,900 --> 00:24:28,130
where brown men became famous and moved
to Long Island where our brothers played
337
00:24:28,130 --> 00:24:31,850
baseball in the tar schoolyards
on the weekends. Back then,
338
00:24:31,850 --> 00:24:34,640
our brother's futures were so
open and they were so close,
339
00:24:35,060 --> 00:24:38,780
they all dreamed the same dream together
that with a crack of a bat and the pool
340
00:24:38,780 --> 00:24:42,110
of their skinny brown legs that could
run away from the smell of garbage,
341
00:24:42,290 --> 00:24:43,430
the fear on the streets,
342
00:24:43,820 --> 00:24:46,550
the boys beating them up when they
came out of the S in the evening,
343
00:24:47,090 --> 00:24:50,420
they could hit that bat and it would
land them all the way into the safety of
344
00:24:50,420 --> 00:24:54,650
Shea Stadium and then pass that into the
island that was long and rich where all
345
00:24:54,650 --> 00:24:56,210
the baseball stars lived.
346
00:25:01,310 --> 00:25:05,270
This is a Jamaica 179th
Street bound F Express train.
347
00:25:05,480 --> 00:25:09,050
The next stop is 21st Street Queensbridge.
348
00:25:11,420 --> 00:25:15,500
This is Pichchenda Bao
reading In Long Island City.
349
00:25:16,880 --> 00:25:21,620
Today I was stopped by the chatter
of birds perched on a light pole.
350
00:25:22,520 --> 00:25:25,760
It was an almost startling noise,
351
00:25:25,760 --> 00:25:28,700
pricking that lonesome industrial corner.
352
00:25:28,700 --> 00:25:32,000
All around, closed autobody shops, food,
353
00:25:32,000 --> 00:25:33,110
truck warehouses,
354
00:25:33,560 --> 00:25:37,940
anonymous buildings with lowered
metal gates lined the cracked uneven
355
00:25:37,940 --> 00:25:40,910
sidewalks. No other soul in sight.
356
00:25:41,480 --> 00:25:45,230
I wondered what did they,
those insistent birds,
357
00:25:45,680 --> 00:25:47,570
have to say to me,
358
00:25:47,570 --> 00:25:51,290
a simple human mother carrying
a load of groceries home.
359
00:25:52,190 --> 00:25:52,550
Oh,
360
00:25:52,550 --> 00:25:57,530
how long did I stand there rooted
in that small indulgence until
361
00:25:57,530 --> 00:26:00,230
I realized that none of it was for me?
362
00:26:03,490 --> 00:26:06,920
This is a Manhattan bound Local train.
363
00:26:07,070 --> 00:26:12,050
The next stop is Sut
Boulevard. Archer Avenue, JFK.
364
00:26:13,220 --> 00:26:17,330
I'm Francisco Delgado and this is my
poem Trains Are More than Metaphors.
365
00:26:18,740 --> 00:26:22,460
A train can't stay still
for long. Its rumbling.
366
00:26:22,460 --> 00:26:25,220
Home tells us when it's coming and going,
367
00:26:25,880 --> 00:26:29,600
which is a better system than pausing
for an announcement that never comes.
368
00:26:30,800 --> 00:26:33,980
When a train stops moving,
it becomes a museum.
369
00:26:34,970 --> 00:26:37,790
It needs a final destination
to mean something,
370
00:26:37,910 --> 00:26:42,800
and this the second to last stop is
only important because it's here where
371
00:26:42,800 --> 00:26:46,200
we'll onto another train that
will take us the rest of the way.
372
00:26:47,130 --> 00:26:50,580
The closing doors trains
are more than metaphors.
373
00:26:51,510 --> 00:26:54,720
My son shows me how with
or without us on board,
374
00:26:54,840 --> 00:26:56,940
they go from place to place.
375
00:26:58,320 --> 00:27:01,470
We're constantly learning that
going back is never the same,
376
00:27:01,950 --> 00:27:04,980
aren't we? For now,
377
00:27:04,980 --> 00:27:08,400
he's learning to not touch every
surface he sees and to never
378
00:27:08,400 --> 00:27:09,630
trust an empty car.
379
00:27:10,590 --> 00:27:15,570
We mind the gaps and absences
that make here and there more than
380
00:27:15,570 --> 00:27:16,890
one letter apart.
381
00:27:20,550 --> 00:27:23,070
The next stop is 69th Street.
382
00:27:25,380 --> 00:27:25,710
Hi,
383
00:27:25,710 --> 00:27:30,210
my name is Jackie Shebow and I'm going
to be reading a poem called Seeing the
384
00:27:30,210 --> 00:27:34,770
Apartment at 69th Street.
I don't know it yet,
385
00:27:35,310 --> 00:27:39,270
but I'm standing in the place between
where I was and where I'll end up.
386
00:27:39,990 --> 00:27:44,610
Today I'm meeting strangers with the wrong
idea in my head of my possible future
387
00:27:45,660 --> 00:27:50,550
long-legged women coming out of the
shower perching on armrests Christmas
388
00:27:50,550 --> 00:27:53,100
lights strung around doorways year round.
389
00:27:54,090 --> 00:27:56,610
I'm looking for a spot
to sit on the train.
390
00:27:57,510 --> 00:28:00,210
I'm looking at least
for a railing to hold.
391
00:28:01,260 --> 00:28:04,530
I'm looking for a place to live.
In the shadow of the seven.
392
00:28:05,670 --> 00:28:07,830
I've left things behind at the old place,
393
00:28:08,340 --> 00:28:13,260
which feels empty now that I'm alone
and each night I purchase them from
394
00:28:13,260 --> 00:28:16,770
the pharmacy that hums with the
clatter of the elevated trap.
395
00:28:17,760 --> 00:28:20,550
A pink hairbrush, natural toothpaste,
396
00:28:21,420 --> 00:28:26,370
a new brand of face wash
a razor on 69th street.
397
00:28:26,940 --> 00:28:30,720
Instead of my imagined
dreamy, beautiful non men,
398
00:28:31,170 --> 00:28:34,530
there would only be one and
her husband who took my coat.
399
00:28:35,430 --> 00:28:38,550
Inside all of the apartments
I see from the platform,
400
00:28:39,030 --> 00:28:42,510
one of them mine cat hair
gathers in the corner,
401
00:28:43,200 --> 00:28:44,670
windows open on trees,
402
00:28:45,480 --> 00:28:50,190
cockroaches peek out from the corners
and dart with projected temerity across
403
00:28:50,190 --> 00:28:53,760
kitchen floors. Coffee
gets cold and percolators.
404
00:28:54,900 --> 00:28:59,640
I carry everything with me. Back
and forth, up and down. Roosevelt,
405
00:29:00,300 --> 00:29:04,110
the train a cradle sometime,
but also a catapult.
406
00:29:07,170 --> 00:29:09,450
This is the last stop on this train.
407
00:29:12,180 --> 00:29:15,780
Thanks for listening. To
see the map, hear the poems,
408
00:29:16,080 --> 00:29:19,110
and learn more about our contributors
and about future trained readings,
409
00:29:19,350 --> 00:29:21,120
go to queens bound.com.
